Sunday, December 30, 2012

(from 'God Is Not Great' by Christopher Hitchens)
". . . "Make me one with everything." So goes the Buddhist's humble request to the hot-dog vendor. But when the Buddhist hands over a twenty-dollar bill to the vendor, in return for his slathered bun, he waits a long time for his change. Finally asking for it, he is informed that "change comes only from within." All such rhetoric is almost too easy to parody, as is that of missionary Christianity. In the old Anglican cathedral in Calcutta I once paid a visit to the statue of Bishop Reginald Heber, who filled the hymn books of the Church of England with verses like these:

What though the tropic breezes
Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle
Where every prospect pleases
And only man is vile
What though with loving kindness
The gifts of God are strown
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone

It is partly in reaction to the condescension of old colonial boobies like this that many westerners have come to revere the apparently more seductive religions of the Orient. . . "

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Saturday, December 29, 2012

Six AM
The buses aren't nearly as crowded
As the night before
Someone said there was
Music and laughter
Behind all the shutters and doors
What was all of it for

Who needs friends
There's barely a minute for breathing
Everyone here works so hard
There's no party
When I reach my doorstep
I struggle to pull out my key
Where's the meaning for me

You see but you're unaware
There's life on the other side

But there's no bridge to cross
I'm looking through the fog
For some way out of here
I've baggage here to
I've baggage here to toss

Bless my soul
I've read about you in the paper
I've seen your picture somewhere
When you speak it's in volumes and volumes
I can't hear a word that you say
Funny it happens that way
I've been told that envy's the thing I've been feeling
For your kind of work and your play
But to tell you the truth
That it's only a wish
For a new kind of day
When worry and fear melt away

Could be
That a day will come
When you just might understand

But there's no bridge to cross
I'm looking through the fog
For some way out of here
I've baggage here to
I've baggage here to toss

I'd like to go away
and go there to stay
But I can't find the way

So it goes
But change never really comes easy
Resistance is felt all around
But inevitably
Something happens
That makes the old ship run aground
We all stare in awe of what's found

Like me
You appear to be
Looking for some meaning here

But there's no bridge to cross
I'm looking through the fog
For some way out of here
I've baggage here to
I've baggage here to
I've baggage here to toss

Friday, December 28, 2012

. . . with the super radical acoustic show Wednesday, January 2, 2013 @ 10:00pm [hosted by Matt Graboski] including the OHO Duo (Oho is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak-two out of three ain't bad)

. . . I signed up for high-wired acts
If I lose my balance just cut me some slack
I'm holding out for what can be
EMC squared possibility
Experience to be alive
The abstract now is literalized
You have dreams and nightmares to explore
Get the goods Get off the floor
Get off the floor
Get off the floor

Thursday, December 27, 2012

I realize the importance of stimulating the economy and economic growth. I also know that when it comes to increasing profits (or should I say the 'accumulation of wealth'?) the human race is most certainly on board. Dylan Ratigan (in his book GREEDY BASTARDS) says that there is good, long-term greed - the type where someone provides a valuable product or service of high quality and reasonable price, and profits from it at a reasonable rate over a long term - and then there is bad, short-term greed (the one practiced by the 'bastards') where someone provides something of little to no value (or even swindles through questionable means) and reaps gigantic profits very quickly. I fear that pursuit of the latter type is much more prevalent these days than the former . . .

(from http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/nervous-retailers-hope-post-christmas-rush-1C7659314)
". . . The biggest holiday of the season is over, but retailers are hoping that you aren’t done with your holiday shopping quite yet.

“The next few days are critical for retailers. They’ve got some catching up to do,” said Marshal Cohen, retail industry analyst with NPD Group.

On Wednesday, big chains including Macy's were already pushing their post-Christmas bargains, while major discounters including Wal-Mart were encouraging shoppers to redeem their gift cards right away. But the fallout from a big Christmas storm could hurt their efforts if shoppers decide they prefer a cozy rest of the week at home instead. . ."

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". . .rock and pop musicians are more likely to die prematurely than the general population, and finds that solo artists are twice as likely to die young as members of bands.

Researchers from Liverpool John Moores University and Britain’s Health Department studied 1,489 rock, pop, punk, R&B, rap, electronica and New Age stars who became famous between 1956 and 2006 — from Elvis Presley to the Arctic Monkeys. They found that 137 of the stars, or 9.2 percent, had died, representing “higher levels of mortality than demographically matched individuals in the general population.”. . . "

How about middle-aged, full-time employed, married (with grown children)men who are solo eclectic jazz pianists and also members of rock/prog/folk/jazz-trios struggling to market both music while living the suburban dream and contemplating possible retirement (from the 'non'-music occupation) in another five-to-ten years?

(and while we're on the topic of useless, inconsequential studies, is coffee actually good for me or NOT?!!!)

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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

. . . so now. It's come and gone. Sure, sure, we're supposed to keep the Christmas 'spirit' all year round. But WHO really does.

Who really does anything to help humanity all year round all the time. Help everyone always no matter if there is a holiday, or a tragedy, or a book or a tradition or a legacy that one is trying to observe.

Well, at least we bought plenty of gifts and distributed them appropriately to everyone we deemed 'giftworthy'.

What makes them really giftworthy in the first place anyway???

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Monday, December 24, 2012

(from http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm)
Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the week long celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.

The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).

In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.[2]

The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday.

Christians had little success, however, refining the practices of Saturnalia. As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor history at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, “In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.” The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.

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